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2013
18
January
How To Get The Best Deal On Flights From Regina To Chicago
18
January
Guides
The Ydeals Noise-Free Guide To Getting The Best Deal On Flights From Regina (YQR) to Chicago (ORD)
 | There are a multitude of travel sites out there, all hoping travellers from Regina will believe they have unique or special prices on airfares to Chicago. They don't. They use marketing noise to distort the fact that there is really only one originating source of unique prices on flights from Regina to Chicago. This airfare travel guide will remove the noise and show you what that source is, so you can stop wasting so much time when searching for the best ticket price. |
What are the unique sources of ticket prices on flights from Regina (YQR) to Chicago ?
Unique Source #1 - The Major Airlines
There are 4 major airlines that offer flights from Calgary to Chicago (ORD), and they are: Air Canada, Delta, United Airlines, and WestJet.
Where should I look to get the best air fare deal?
All you actually need to do is search all the major airlines, preferably at once. My favorite way to do this currently would be using Google Flights Explorer but it doesn't appear to currently display airfares between Regina and Chicago. If anyone reading this ever sees them show up, please let me know.
So, that means my favorite way would be to search ticket prices using Kayak. It has all the sort and filter options I need, and searches all major airlines. Enter 'Regina (YQR)' in the From box and 'Chicago, IL - All airports (CHI)'.
You may be wondering why we're searching the airport code of CHI, and not the official Chicago airport code of ORD. That's because Chicago actually has 2 major airports, Chicago O'Hare (ORD) and Chicago Midway (MDW). A lot of people forget to check Midway (MDW), but it's actually served by many major airlines, and is closer and more convenient to downtown Chicago than O'Hare (ORD).
Anyways, when you search for Chicago (CHI) on any decent airfare search engine, you'll actually be searching travel fares to both airports at once. Even though both airports usually have pretty similar prices, it can't hurt to check.
After you've entered in Chicago (CHI) as your destination, click on 'Make my dates flexible' and set it to '+/- 3 days'. You may be surprised at just how often being a little flexible with your dates can result in a better plane ticket price.
What about the thousands of other travel ticket sites that have airfares to Chicago?
This is the noise. There is no shortage of travel sites or holiday travel brands trying to convince you that they have the cheapest flights from Regina to Chicago. The truth is though, there's only one unique source of airfare prices that they're getting their prices from, and that's from the major airlines themselves. They can't begin to offer a lower price than the airline itself, as there's already virtually no markup.
There's a few reasons why I think travelers from Regina waste an enormous amount of time checking multiple travel websites, hoping for a better deal than the one they've already found (studies show it to be an average of 22 different sites over 10 periods of research!). The first reason is just human nature. We all want to compare prices and make sure we're getting the best deal for our vacation dollars.
But I think the biggest reason is simply the hype surrounding travel marketing. With so many travel retailers and brands competing for your attention and holiday dollars, combined with the fact that not one of them will *ever* admit to you that their secret source of prices is the same as everyone else, it's little wonder Canadian travelers waste so much time searching.
What about searching the airline's website directly?
There's nothing wrong with doing that. It's just usually a lot easier to search all of the airlines at once, with a better interface using a good search tool. It's sad just how poor many of the airline's search interfaces are. At any rate, the fares found on any half-decent search engine will be the same as the seat prices found on the airline's own website.
One thing you can do is just use a search tool to search all the airlines at once, and then go to the airline's own site to book it once you've figured out exactly which flight you want, and what the price is.
What about my local travel agency or independent travel agent?
Surprise, they're seeing the same prices you are. Depending on the agency or agent, they may even charge you a 'booking fee' on top of the airfare price, for their time. As there's virtually no markup on the cost of flights, they can't offer you a price that's any cheaper than from the airline, or from a search tool that properly searches the latest airfares.
When should I book my flight from Regina to get the best price?
This is never an easy question to answer, as airfares are not 100% predictable. Airlines start by setting their price at a level they think will fill the maximum number of seats, based on the demand they expect to see.
If they experience less demand than they expected, they may decide to lower them. If they experience more demand than they expected, they may raise them. Unfortunately, a lot of factors that influence demand can be unpredictable.
How long a person can wait it out in hopes of a better price is a personal decision. Personally though, I am usually not afraid to watch prices on the major airlines up to about 8 weeks before departure in hopes of a better price without fear of the price rising. But everyone has a different tolerance for risk.
What about last minute deals out of Regina?
Last minute airfare deals to Chicago on the major airlines don't really exist. Typical of most airfares on the major airlines, as you get fairly close to the departure date, if the airline has done their job correctly, and filled most of the seats on the plane, they feel the last remaining seats become more valuable, and often decide to raise the price.
What's a decent price from Regina to Chicago?
From Regina's airport, flights to Chicago tend to bottom out around $550 to $600 (roundtrip after taxes). This is just a general guideline for ticket prices though, based on average demand periods of the year.
Airfare prices are highly affected by demand. So anytime you can think of a reason that there might be higher demand than usual for travel to Chicago (such as dates when many people in Regina have holiday time) you can expect prices of tickets to react accordingly.
As for the Christmas holiday period (anything between Dec 21 and Jan 5), that's a whole other level of demand, which means air fare prices are never anything but very expensive relative to the rest of the year. As a very general rule of thumb, I find you can usually take a decent price from an average demand period and multiply it by 1.5 to get your typical Christmas price for flights.
What about one way flights to Chicago?
You should be able to get to Chicago for about 50-60% of the cost of a roundtrip flight. Use the same search techniques as for round-trip flights, and just change the search option in your favorite search tool to 'one-way'.
What about non-stop (direct) flights to Chicago?
From Regina, there are non-stop (direct) flights to Chicago (ORD) on United. Everyone else has at least 1 stopover, even Westjet.
What about a multi-city flight? Such as into Chicago and out of another airport?
Searching for multi-city flights in travel is still a bit of a pain. Even Google Explorer currently can't handle it, as there's too many possible combinations. I'm sure eventually someone (likely Google) will put enough processing power behind it and create something useful for searching multi-city fares.
But for now, you're stuck with searching one departure date at a time when it comes to multi-city fares and experimenting with different destination combinations. Most of the decent travel sites will offer a multi-city option (it should be right next to 'one-way' and 'round-trip').
Kayak would be my preferred option here. Just click on the 'multi-city' option and in the first box, enter in Regina to Chicago (CHI), or whatever airport you want to fly into, and then in the second box, enter Indianapolis (IND) to Regina, or whatever airport you want to fly out of.
You never really know what you're going to get with a multi-city fare. And it really depends on what airport you choose to come back from! And of course, you're still left with figuring out the cost of getting between the two airports.
What about cheap flights to Chicago from U.S. airports within driving distance of Regina?
From Minot (MOT), North Dakota
If you've ever read my guide about flying out of U.S. airports within driving distance of Regina, you may know that I feel it could be worth the drive, but only when you see an airfare from Minot that's at least $425 less per person than from Regina.
And with it being fairly common to see flights to Chicago in the range of $550-$600 roundtrip after taxes from YQR, the flight from Minot would need to be around $150 roundtrip after taxes or less, to be worth the drive for the most people, and that's not likely to happen from Minot. That's just my opinion though. You can use the calculator in the guide above to see if it would be worth it for you.
I think I've found a super deal on a flight to Chicago!
Excellent! Please share it with your fellow travel lovers, they will appreciate it and thank you for it! You can post it in the YQR Deals Facebook group (click 'Join Group', at the top-right, when you arrive), where thousands of people from Regina are crowd-sourcing the best deals, and sharing great travel advice.
Or if you prefer, you can always give me a shout through the YQR Deals contact form or on Twitter @YQRdeals or through Google Plus. Great deal finds are always appreciated.
Why should I trust this Regina travel guide?
 | The info in this guide is based on my observations of the travel industry over the years, including all the thousands of websites out there, and where all the different players get their prices from and how they interact with each other. The goal is to remove the noise surrounding travel marketing, so people can stop wasting so much valuable time searching the same holiday prices over and over. |
But, as social proof of it's accuracy, feel free to join the YQR Deals Facebook Group (click 'Join Group', at the top-right, when you arrive) and publicly disagree with any of it, or make a comment below. Critiques are always welcome!
I think I have some info that could help improve the Regina flight deal guide!
Great! Please post your info in the Facebook group above, or contact me directly. Suggestions for improvement are always appreciated. Let me know if you see something that seems inaccurate or outdated.
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